This specification relates generally to telephony systems and, more particularly, to a voice activated dialing system operably connectable between base and handset portions of a telephone.
Voice recognition is the technology by which sounds, words or phrases spoken by humans are converted into electrical signals which, in turn, are transformed into coding patterns to which meaning has been assigned. Applications of voice recognition technology have been developed for a wide array of devices, including, but not limited to, personal computers, telephony devices, home appliances and security systems. Many of the telephony devices which incorporate voice recognition technology are wireless communication devices intended for use in automotive and other operating environments where xe2x80x9chands-freexe2x80x9d operation is desirable to enhance safe usage of the telephony device. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,063 to Sakanishi et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,121 to Shimada. Other telephony devices are designed for wireline communication networks such as the public switched telephone network (or xe2x80x9cPSTNxe2x80x9d). While these devices also retrieve and dial telephone numbers in response to a spoken word or phrase, unlike the safety concerns motivating the development of voice activated telephony devices for use in wireless networks, voice activated telephones for use in the PSTN or other wireline networks are often marketed as modem conveniences designed to improve worker efficiency by enhancing the speed at which telephone numbers may be retrieved from a personal directory and dialed.
The electronic circuitry necessary to retrieve and dial telephone numbers maintained in a memory or other storage device may either be incorporated into the telephone itself or into a discrete device coupled thereto. U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,107 to Clowes et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,302 to Kaneuchi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,081 to Schmuckal et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,501 to Shimanuki all disclose telephones equipped with voice recognition circuitry which, upon detection of an appropriate audibilization, initiate dialing of a corresponding telephone number. Conversely, U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,808 to Immendorfer et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,953 to Fujisaki and U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,579 to Stogel disclose voice recognition dialers which generate dialing sequences for transmission to wireline telephones variously coupled thereto. Regardless of their particular configuration, many voice activated dialing systems require substantial modifications to either the telephones themselves or to other portions of the telephony systems associated therewith, particularly when such systems involve multiple lines associated with each telephone.
One technique used by electronic devices to perform voice recognition is commonly referred to as xe2x80x9ctemplate matching.xe2x80x9d Template matching is generally considered the simplest voice recognition technique and also enjoys the highest accuracy when properly used. The user first speaks a word or phrase into a microphone. The electrical signal from the microphone is digitized by an analog-to-digital (or xe2x80x9cA/Dxe2x80x9d) converter and is stored in memory. To determine the meaning of the voice input, a processor attempts to match the voice input with a digitized voice sample, or template, stored in memory, that has a known meaning. Upon identifying a template which matches the word or phrase spoken by the user, the processor executes a function associated with the matching template. However, since every person""s voice is different, electronic devices which use template matching to perform voice recognition must be trained with the voice input of a prospective user before that user""s voice can be recognized by the electronic device. During such a training session, the user would repeatedly speak a selected words or phrases into the microphone. The processor computes a statistical average of the multiple samples for each one of the selected words or phrases and stores the averaged samples as templates in corresponding program data structures. Command or data information is then associated with the template. For example, when training a voice activated dialer, the spoken sample would be a name of a person and the command information associated with that sample would be a string of digits to be dialed upon detection of the name being spoken.
While the aforementioned training technique is satisfactory for use with many electronic devices, it is less readily accepted for use with voice activated dialers. In particular, retraining processes which involve the editing of the personal telephone directory maintained by voice activated dialers have proven particularly problematic. Once properly trained, most voice activated devices require little retraining. In contrast, however, personal telephone directories require frequent editing. Personal moves, purchases of wireless telephones, corporate relocations, employee turnover and establishment of new area codes are just some of the events which may necessitate the editing of a personal telephone directory maintained by a voice activated dialer. Unfortunately, few voice activated devices are designed for ease of use when editing. In particular, the partial editing of entries is oftentimes difficult. As previously set forth, training of a voice activated device involves the association of a spoken word or phrase and command or data information. For example, the training of a voice activated word processing application would involve associating a combination of keystrokes with a spoken word. Designers have long recognized that, once trained, a voice activated electronic device may often require editing so that a new audible sound is associated with an existing combination of keystrokes. For example, a voice activated word processing application would need to be retrained when a new user who pronounces words differently than the original user begins to operate the device. However, since voice activated word processing applications rarely involve editing the commands previously associated with audible sounds, such editing oftentimes proves difficult. Thus, since voice activated dialers require frequent editing of the telephone numbers associated with a spoken word or phrase during the initial training of the device, the aforementioned limitation has presented an obstacle to the widespread acceptance of voice activated dialers. Moreover, while many such difficulties would be eased by incorporating a display, for example, a liquid crystal diode (or xe2x80x9cLCDxe2x80x9d) display into the voice activated dialer, such a modification would add greatly to the cost of such a voice activated dialer.
Therefore, what is needed is a voice activated dialer configured for ease of use during retraining operations. It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide such a device. There is a further need for a voice activated dialer configured for use with a wide variety of existing telephony devices without necessitating substantial modification thereto. It is, therefore, a further object of the invention to provide such a device.
In one embodiment, the invention is directed to a telephone system comprising a base, a handset and a transmission line which couples the base to the handset. Coupled to the transmission line at a location intermediate the base and handset is a voice recognition/voice tone generation (or xe2x80x9cVR/VTGxe2x80x9d) circuit for detecting an audio signal originating at sound detection/generation (or xe2x80x9cSD/Gxe2x80x9d) circuitry located within the handset and generating, in response thereto, a series of tones for propagation along the transmission line. Telephone circuitry within the base detects the series of tones and establishes a call in response thereto. In one aspect thereof, the VR/VTG circuit is located entirely within a first housing having first and second connector plugs supportably mounted thereto. In this aspect, the transmission line is comprised of a first link extending from the telephone circuitry to the first connector plug, a second link extending from the first connector plug to the second connector plug and located entirely within the first housing, and a third link extending from the second connector plug to the SD/G circuitry. In further accordance with this aspect of the invention, the VR/VTG circuit is coupled to the second link of the transmission line.
In a further aspect thereof, the base of the telephone system includes a second housing within which the telephone circuitry is entirely located and a third connector plug, coupled to the telephone circuitry, supportably mounted to the second housing. In this aspect, a first end of the first link is coupled to the third connector plug and a second end of the first link is coupled to the first connector plug. In a still further aspect thereof, the handset of the telephone system includes a third housing within which the SD/G circuitry is entirely located and a fourth connector plug, coupled to the SD/G circuitry, supportably mounted to the third housing. In this aspect, a first end of the third link is coupled to the second connector plug and a second end of the third link is coupled to the fourth connector plug.
In still further aspects thereof, the VR/VTG circuit is comprised of a means for detecting a dial tone on the second link of the transmission line, a means for generating a first electrical signal in response to detection of a dial tone on the second link of the transmission line, a means for detecting a second electrical signal on the second link of the transmission line, and a means for converting the second electrical signal into the series of tones used by the telephone circuitry to establish a connection. In this aspect of the invention, the SD/G circuitry of the telephone handset converts the first electrical signal into audible sound while the second electrical signal is generated by the SD/G circuitry in response to detection of an audible sound thereby.
In yet another aspect thereof, the telephone system further includes a storage facility coupled to the VR/VTG circuit and located entirely within the first housing. In this aspect, the storage facility maintains a plurality of entries, each comprised of a first data block defining an audible identifier of a first destination terminal and a second data block defining a series of tones capable of causing the telephone circuitry within the base to establish a call to the first destination terminal, and the VR/VTG circuit generates the series of tones defined by the second data block upon detecting a first audio signal, originated at the SD/G circuitry, matching the audible identifier defined in the first data block.
In still further aspects thereof, the telephone system may further include a data keypad or data and control keypads, each comprised of at least one key coupled to the VR/VTG circuit and formed along the first housing. The data keypad is used to enter the second data block for each one of the plurality of entries while the first and second data blocks of each one of the plurality of entries are modifiable by the VR/VTG circuit in response to instructions issued thereto by the control keypad.
In another embodiment, the present invention is directed to a method for upgrading a telephone to include voice activated dialing features. To upgrade the telephone, one end of a first transmission line coupling base and handset portions of the telephone is disconnected. The disconnected end of the first transmission line is then connected to a voice activated dialer. A second transmission line is coupled between the voice activated dialer and the disconnected one of the base or handset. As the voice activated dialer is configured to recognize a first audible sound detected by the handset and transmit a telephone number, associated with the recognizable audible sound, to telephone circuitry located within the base, the telephone is now capable of performing various voice activated dialing features. In further aspects of this embodiment of the invention, the first end of the transmission line is disconnected and the second end of the second transmission line connected from/to the base or, alternately, the second end of the transmission line is disconnected and the second end of the second transmission line connected from/to the handset.
In still another embodiment, the present invention is directed to a voice activated dialer comprising means for maintaining a plurality of entries in a storage facility, means for detecting a dial tone, means for generating a prompt in response to detection of a dial tone, means for detecting an audibilization uttered by a user in response to the prompt, means for comparing the detected audibilization to audible identifiers stored in a first data block of each one of the plurality of entries, and means for generating, from a tone sequence stored in a second data block of an entry containing an audible identifier which matches the detected audibilization, a series of tones capable of causing telephone circuitry associated therewith to establish a call.
In one aspect of this embodiment of the invention, the voice activated dialer includes connection circuitry which interconnects the voice activated dialer between base and handset portions of a telephone. In another, further, aspect thereof, the connection circuitry includes a first connection interface for coupling the voice activated dialer to the base portion of the telephone and a second connection interface for coupling the voice activated dialer to the handset portion of the telephone. In this aspect, the base and handset portions of the telephone are coupled to one another through the voice activated dialer. In still other aspects thereof, the connection circuitry includes a transmission line coupling the first and second connection interfaces and the entry maintaining means, dial tone detection means, prompt generation means, audibilization detection means, comparing means and tone generation means all reside within a circuit coupled to the transmission line.
In a still further aspect thereof, the voice activated dialer includes a normally closed switch provided along the transmission line. When the switch is in the closed position, the base portion of the telephone is coupled to the voice activated dialer and to the handset portion of the telephone via the transmission line. Conversely, when the switch is in the open position, the base portion of the telephone is isolated from the voice activated dialer and the handset portion of the telephone while the voice activated dialer remains coupled to the handset portion of the telephone. In other aspects thereof, the voice activated dialer may also include means for selectively opening and closing the normally closed switch, an interface for issuing instructions initiating modification of a selected entry maintained in the storage facility, means for opening the normally closed switch in response to receipt of an instruction initiating modification of the selected entry, means for issuing an instruction initiating modification of a first data block of the selected entry and means for issuing a second instruction initiating modification of a second data block of the selected entry.